50 000 Won Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple

Seokguram Grotto, carved into the granite of Mount Toham in the mid-eighth century under the Unified Silla kingdom, was rediscovered in 1909 by a Japanese postal worker sheltering from rain — its existence had been effectively lost to institutional memory for centuries. Japanese colonial authorities subsequently dismantled and poorly reassembled the structure, causing moisture damage that required a full UNESCO-supervised restoration in the 1960s before the site's 1995 World Heritage inscription.

The Bank of Korea has issued commemorative silver pieces tied to UNESCO-listed Korean heritage sites across several series. KM#130 belongs to that program.